My aunt in 4'10 and she copes, in fact she revels in it, people underestimate her all the time, then she can laugh at her when she is better than them.
She is a kayaker and can kayak considerably faster than almost anybody which nobody expects, was funny when they had to line up in their categories for a session and all the other people in her category were 6'4 +

(Original post by Steve Edwards)
Many people think it's perfectly normal to treat a person of 6'4" differently to a person of 5'2".

Seriously? The only thing I, or pretty much anyone I know, changes when talking to taller people is the angle my head's at :/
On your Obama thing, I know he's tall but we've had plenty of short successful politicians. Churchill, one of the most greatly respected (whether rightly or wrongly) PMs we've had was a measly 5' 7" but he was the right man for the job so he got it...

Haven't been here for awhile, but thought i'd reply as intrigued by this thread.
I'm only 4ft9 , therefore by many standards i'm practically a midget. (i'm female) I feel as though I get discriminated quite abit, but obviously it's hardly to the extent that's mentioned in the OP, as I'm still young/a student so haven't been rejected or not promoted as the 6ft5 guy or whatever has taken my place.
However, I do see it as being in the same catergory as racism, sexism in this century. I cannot change my height (unless I go through painful, expensive surgery) therefore to not be accepted/bullied/discriminated due to my height i feel is the same as not being able to change your race. 95% of the time when I'm out at night, I will generally get at least one comment. Even if i'm in heels i'm below average height therefore I do stand out. I cba to say all the comments because I've generally heard them all. What i find is frustrating is the obvious stupid comments like "oh, wow you're short". If i said this to a black guy "oh, wow you're black" I'd get alot of crap for it right? What is the difference? If i reject a guy for being asian, I'd get called racist. If a guy rejects me coz i'm too short, it's just him being picky. Why isn't it heightist? It's along the exact same lines. Statistics show that short people are discriminated against, why isn't this more of a big (excuse the pun) issue? I don't mind my height, yeah i'm really small but i accepted that a long time ago, however other people seem to constantly kindly remind me at every opportunity, as if they've never seen a really short girl before. I feel as though my socialising opportunities have been limited as when i was 18/19 i was so worried people would comment/tease/make an issue out of my height that I didn't want to ever go out. And due to the fact i'm only 21, i'm sure there's more to come with the workplace.

(Original post by Valindrius)
I wouldn’t agree that it’s as serious as sexism, racism, etc as I expect any bias due to those is on a conscious level, whereas bias due to height difference seems to be unconscious. I imagine that any suppression of social groups as a result of conscious bias is far more profound due to the way in which dehumanising thoughts might make it easier to abuse others. Of course, that is wholly based upon anecdotal evidence thus has no true validity, but my (very poor) knowledge of history would seem to confirm this via slavery, disenfranchisement, etc.

However, I have read some evidence suggesting that height is correlated with chances of promotion or professional success. Naturally, such a difference may not be present if such studies were replicated and it’s possible that the correlation existed due to sexism rather than heightism, as sexist attitudes would cause fewer women to be present in the upper echelons of industry thus the average height would increase. Though, this explanation is somewhat problematic as the average height for an individual in an elite position is far above that of either sex. If I accept the data analysis as valid then the only conclusion I can reach is that there is some level of prejudice linked to height that affects employability and promotion based upon an irrelevant quirk of nature.

This means that I would approve of further exploration into the matter so that it can be counteracted, and would similarly support efforts that encourage employers to scrutinise their motivations for choosing candidates so that they are as meritocratic as feasible. My initial instinct at one time would have been to dismiss this as ‘silly’ or that it’s ‘common sense’ that there isn’t any true discrimination, but I prefer to override my fallible brain with raw numbers rather than relying on unsubstantiated prejudice.

(For those that might, hypothetically, be shallow enough to care about this detail when deciding the legitimacy of my comments: I’m 6’4”.)